Using ED to Write for Megadisc ------------------------------ by Alan Jones Ed: The file "Edset" mentioned below is in this drawer, kindly created by Alan - copy it to the appropriate disk and you don't need to make it up yourself.  <> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <>  As most contributors would know, text in the Editor's preferred format starts at column 3 and ends at column 75. If submissions can be prepared in this way, doubtless it saves Tim a good deal of time that would otherwise be spent in reformatting. The trouble is that, although most word processors and text editors allow the right margin to be easily set, few will do the same for the left margin (we are dealing here with the screen margin, not the printer margin.) Back in MD19, readers' questions, the Editor mentioned "Professional Text Engine" as the only program he'd found with this facility. Not many of us are likely to own this editor.  Why not MEmacs? --------------- Inserting spaces manually can get tiresome, so I've been doing a bit of casting around. And there, sitting unused in the Workbench Tools drawer, somewhat obscure but full of promise, was the MEmacs editor. So I consulted the WB2 system software manual, and Eureka! there are ways to set both left and right margins. Since the manual tends to contradict itself, I looked at two or three other "official" manuals, only to find further conflict. All the same, experiment showed that it is indeed possible. Moreover, MEmacs is supposed to allow word wrap at the end of each line - just about indispensable for non-touch typists, and in any case the right margin can get pretty untidy without it. Well, it seemed that none of the optional commands for "wrap" would produce the goods. But, after many attempts, I found a way: write a configuration file listing the commands for margins and word wrap, then use the menu item "execute-file". All well and good - except that, at the first occurrence of word wrap, the left margin was lost! At this point I gave up.  Good old ED  ----------- Almost as a last resort I turned to the much-maligned ED that resides in the Workbench C directory, recalling the comments by Graeme Clinch and Andrew Wong in MD30B (readers' hints) about the enhanced version of ED in Workbench 2. Following Andrew's suggestion, I ran ED without its usual initialisation file (s:ed-startup) and soon found that both margins can easily be set from the menus. What's more, word wrap is automatic! So it's all very easy (and well described in the manual). There's one snag (isn't there always?). If you go back and edit a line so as to insert more characters, there is a risk that ED will ignore the right-margin setting on that line. So it pays to be fairly sure of what you want to write, and correct any errors as you go. Well, after all, it isn't meant to be a full-blown word-processor... Incidentally, this note was prepared with ED.  Setting Up  ---------- We could leave matters there, but a description of one way to set up ED for convenient use in writing for Megadisc may be of help to some. > Format a floppy disk and name it (say) MDtext. Put it in df0:. > Copy ED from the Workbench C directory to MDtext. > In the Shell enter: df0: then: Ed EDset > In the ED window, enter: sl 3 sr 75 st 5 > Save the EDset file. We now have a script that can be used to get the correct margins whenever we want to write Megadisc text. It also resets the tabsize to my preferred figure of five: change this to suit yourself, or leave it out if the default tab of 3 is acceptable. Now to write a Megadisc submission: put MDtext in df0:, get into the Shell and enter: df0: then: Ed WITH EDset When the ED window appears, press RETURN once; the margins and tabsize will now conform to what's wanted. Write the file and save it in the usual way. Alan Jones **************************  <> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <%> 34 <>